


Burn The World AU

by heylittleriotact



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Dark!Lavellan, End of the World, F/M, Lavellan doesn't care, The Slow Arrow reference, This is dark and bitter and I'm not sorry, please take note of warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 09:59:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5244110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heylittleriotact/pseuds/heylittleriotact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick musing about a Dark!Lavellan who is so resentful of the horrors, cruelties and pain in the world that she doesn’t lift a finger to stop Solas.</p><p>She just waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn The World AU

It is broad daylight, but she plainly hears a woman’s scream echo shrilly off the cobble walls only a short distance away.

“Stop! Please… please! Someone help!”

She is too far away to render any assistance to the imperiled woman.

The screaming is cut short, though the terrified vocalization continues to reverberate down the alley.

She turns the corner into a large square. There are considerably more people here, but it is no merrier a place than the alley she had just been in. There is a scaffold set up and the hangman is earns his coin for the day as he slips a noose around the neck of a man whose face is red and swollen and covered with tears. His lower lips quivers and he is babbling unintelligibly with his eyes squeezed shut. The last thing he would see if his eyes were open would be the jeering and hungry faces of those in the crowd who would see him pay with his life for whatever transgression he has made.

The hangman draws a black sack over the criminal’s head anyway.

She feels sick.

Never once as Inquisitor did she execute a prisoner, regardless of their crime: Life and death were not for her to decide unless someone was swinging a sword at her. And yet the ravenous hoard groups at the base of the scaffold, their priority for their visit is that they are present in the moment that a man’s life flees from his being.

“I’m sorry.” She murmurs to the man, inaudible amongst the raucous crowd that becomes deafeningly loud in their cheer as the lever is pulled and the man drops. It’s clear that his neck snaps, but his death is not swift; his legs flail and twitch as he jerks and sways at the end of his rope.

Clapping. Laughing: An arguably heathen host of those who experience glee knowing that they have just watched a person die.

_So you’ve murdered a murderer._

She wonders if he can still hear.

She turns from the square and departs down another side street, still looking over her shoulder at the hullabaloo near the scaffolding, unable to tear her gaze from the throng of bodies that she half expects to cannibalize their kill on the spot.

Her breath is driven from her lungs and she staggers back a few steps when she clips the shoulder of a stranger walking in the opposite direction. Her hood falls and she blinks away the shock of the encounter.

“Fucking knife-ear!” The man she collided with snarls and starts angrily towards her, his eyes mad with fury.

“I’m sorry.” She says for the second time today. “Are you alright?”

“I bloody well am not.” He grabs her by the front of her cloak.

He smells of booze and sex and fear.

“Not when the likes of you are lynching around town, up to no good. Ain’t you got a scullery to tend to?”

“I meant no offense.” She says, maintaining an even tone despite a pressing desire to set fire to this man’s flesh: There would be no reward in taking his life now. He will not be long for this world. “Unhand me.” She commands calmly. “I’m not worth the trouble.”

He considers her words and her dark stare for a moment before heeding her advice. He releases his grasp on her with a shove, but she manages to keep her feet. She waits for him to begin staggering away before she continues in her direction; she does not trust that he won’t stab her in the back the moment she turns it on him.

The city stinks. Denerim is meant to be the crown jewel among Ferelden’s cities, but if it is comparable to anything it is a rusty nail catching a random, dim sunbeam among a pile of trash. A baby wails somewhere nearby and a pack of rats scurry across her path. The contents of a chamber pot sit in the middle of the street, having been emptied from the window above earlier in the day. Somewhere there is a loud bang, and the smell of smoke and burning flesh invades her nose, accompanied by more screaming. Two bare, dirty feet protrude from a dark crevice between two buildings. Upon closer examination, they belong to a dead city elf.

She’s been stabbed mercilessly.

She can’t be older than fourteen.

“I’m sorry.” She says for the third time today. She wishes she could give the elf a proper burial in the hope to restore some dignity to her in death, but instead she continues on her way.

Her destination is a tavern near the canal: It is not high class by any means, but it is respectable.

“Your finest Antivan brandy, please.” She says, approaching the counter and withdrawing her purse. She flinches as the serving maid behind her yelps, and men laugh.

She feels her face heat up.

The barkeep observes her with skepticism initially, but then shrugs and retrieves an unopened bottle from behind the bar.

“Your employer got a taste for the good stuff, then?” The barkeep asks conversationally as he counts out her coin.

“He does.” She replies curtly, having long ago tired of attempting to explain herself. “My thanks.” She says as she takes the bottle and leaves the tavern as quickly as she entered it.

She walks the stone streets of Denerim, absorbing the destitution and pain that surround her from every angle in this place. It is vile. It is damned. There is nothing redeeming about the way this place lives. Worse, it is only a caricature of the horrors that lay in the places beyond city walls.

She stops when she reaches an abandoned block of buildings; once reasonably furnished dwellings, they have fallen into disrepair. An entire stretch of them has been blackened and gutted by flames. She pushes one of the doors open with a creak and steps inside, ignoring the threatening crack that her feet coax out of the rotting floor.

With a sigh, she discards her cloak and drops it on an armchair and a flurry of ash dances into the still beams of waning sunlight that pass through the smoke blackened windows.

Clenching the bottle of brandy between her thighs, she uses her remaining hand to wrench the cork free and takes an exploratory sip.

She hums approvingly, setting the bottle on the table so that she can rummage about for a glass of some sort.

All she can find is something cracked and extremely dusty, but she wipes it clean with her shirt as best she can and flops heavily into one of the few unbroken chairs surrounding the dining table before pouring herself a handsome glass of the expensive spirit.

She swirls the amber fluid in the glass, enjoying the rich, complex notes in the aroma of the beverage. The sun has set over the rooftops of Denerim, and she knows it won’t be long now.

She fills her mouth with the brandy and rolls it around her tongue, appreciating its flavour as she withdraws a pipe and a small pouch of tobacco from the satchel at her hip.

Practiced fingers grind and press the leaves into the bowl of the pipe; a ritual that she has completed a thousand times in her life, soothing in its repetition.

Once she has finished, she sits back in her seat, propping her feet on the dusty table and leaning back on the legs of her chair. She cradles her brandy in her lap and sparks the pipe with a finger curled around the bowl. Taking a few deep puffs, she gazes around what’s left of the ruined house, finding no curiosities to catch her eye.

She sits in silence for a time, enjoying her brandy and pipe. She almost considers pulling out a deck of cards to pass the time when the thought is banished from her mind.

It is a small indication of something with massive implications, easily overlooked if one isn’t careful.

It’s nothing more than a slight shimmer that invades her field of vision for a fraction of a second and vanishes as if it never were.

The screaming begins shortly after that.

She pulls on the pipe and leans her head back, issuing a steady procession of smoke rings from her mouth as the world is introduced to Chaos.

They begged her to help.

After all, she was the one he had told the most. She had an edge; she knew more of his plans than anyone else. She’d saved the world once before, she would surely be the one to do it again.

“When did I say that I would save you?” She asked them.

She sits.

She waits.

She sips her brandy.

 

Something moves upstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> I started thinking of this while chatting with my pal the other day: I loved the way Knights of The Old Republic played out: You could either be a wonderful, shiny Jedi and make everything sunshine and cheeriness for the galaxy, or you could be the most cruel, black-hearted Sith in existence. 
> 
> I miss getting to choose an option that is just... awful. In DA, your Inquisitor can be KIND of an asshole if you want, but regardless, you save the world. 
> 
> I decided to speculate about an Inquisitor who staunchly refuses to do so because of the contempt she develops for people and the harm they do to each other.


End file.
